Observation ·
The Value of Greek Wisdom in the Land of Israel
By Hillel HalkinThe liberal arts are on the retreat, perhaps even in danger of extinction, all over the world. What's their future in the Jewish state?
Hillel Halkin
Hillel Halkin’s books include Yehuda Halevi, Across the Sabbath River, Melisande: What are Dreams? (a novel), Jabotinsky: A Life (2014), and, most recently, After One-Hundred-and-Twenty (Princeton).
Latest Content
Response ·
Did Jabotinsky Really Mean it or Was He Pandering?
By Hillel HalkinCommitted to developing and supporting the intellectual, religious, and political leaders of the Jewish people and the Jewish state.
Observation ·
Loss, Discovery, and a Lost Discovery in “Reading Ruth”
By Hillel Halkin, Rabbi Meir SoloveichikParent-child collaborations are rare enough in literary history. Grandparent-grandchild collaborations are unheard of, until the publication this spring of a new study of the book of Ruth.
Response ·
In the Hebrew Bible, Humans Never Learn. But Neither Does God.
By Hillel HalkinCommitted to developing and supporting the intellectual, religious, and political leaders of the Jewish people and the Jewish state.
Observation ·
A Tribute to Mosaic’s Founding Editor
By Eric Cohen, Dr. Ruth Wisse, Martin Kramer, Hillel Halkin, Rabbi Meir SoloveichikSome of Mosaic' s regular writers reflect on Neal Kozodoy and his accomplishments.
Response ·
Jews Wanting to Draw Others Closer to Judaism Should Ask Themselves Why
By Hillel HalkinCommitted to developing and supporting the intellectual, religious, and political leaders of the Jewish people and the Jewish state.
Response ·
Bellow Between Hebraism and Hellenism
By Hillel HalkinCommitted to developing and supporting the intellectual, religious, and political leaders of the Jewish people and the Jewish state.
Observation ·
The Mind-Boggling Story of Shlomo and Yemimah Gangte
By Hillel HalkinHow a young man from a village in northeast India, convinced of his hidden Jewish roots, moved his family to Israel, became an Orthodox rabbi, and turned into a national hero.
Response ·
The Necessary Bad Faith in Reading the Bible as Literature
By Hillel HalkinCommitted to developing and supporting the intellectual, religious, and political leaders of the Jewish people and the Jewish state.
Monthly Essay ·
How to Judge Robert Alter’s Landmark Translation of the Hebrew Bible
By Hillel HalkinFinished after decades of labor, this one-man English translation is a stupendous achievement. How does it hold up against the masterpieces (and follies) that have come before?
Response ·
The Agnon Wink
By Hillel HalkinCommitted to developing and supporting the intellectual, religious, and political leaders of the Jewish people and the Jewish state.
Monthly Essay ·
The Matchless Master of Modern Hebrew Literature
By Hillel HalkinIn his fiction, and especially in the novel Only Yesterday , S.Y. Agnon casts an ironic, unfooled eye on the inner lives of his fellow Jews and their lopsided bargains with modernity.
Response ·
Jewish Historians Could Stand to Borrow a Trick from the Greeks
By Hillel HalkinCommitted to developing and supporting the intellectual, religious, and political leaders of the Jewish people and the Jewish state.
Response ·
A Glorious Hebrew Poet—and Her Challenging Rhymes
By Hillel HalkinCommitted to developing and supporting the intellectual, religious, and political leaders of the Jewish people and the Jewish state.
Monthly Essay ·
The Life, Work, and Legacy of Israel’s Most Beloved Poet
By Hillel HalkinRaḥel will be read, sung, and recited long after many excellent Hebrew poets of her age, men and women alike, have been confined within classroom walls.
Observation ·
The Self-Actualizing Zionism of A.D. Gordon
By Hillel HalkinHow a philosopher who had never before engaged in hard physical work moved to Palestine, became an ascetic day laborer, and inspired a movement.
Observation ·
The Auto-Anti-Semitism of Yosef Hayyim Brenner
By Hillel HalkinWhy is the writing of this great modern Hebrew novelist so dark and anguished, and why does so much of it take such a ferociously negative view of Jews?
Observation ·
The Complex Greatness of the Jewish National Poet, Part Three
By Hillel HalkinḤayyim Naḥman Bialik's faith in a Zionist-led Hebrew renaissance never faltered; nor did his labors on its behalf. Yet he also became, so he felt, Zionism’s prisoner.
Observation ·
The Complex Greatness of the Jewish National Poet, Part Two
By Hillel HalkinḤayyim Naḥman Bialik was called upon by his contemporaries to play the role of a prophet. By consenting, he believed he had betrayed both his talent and his true calling.
Observation ·
The Complex Greatness of the Jewish National Poet, Part One
By Hillel HalkinIn December 1903, Ḥayyim Naḥman Bialik burst to fame and notoriety in a storm of rage at Jewish passivity; by 1910, his poetic career had stalled.
Response ·
The Vanishing of the Jewish Collective
By Hillel HalkinCommitted to developing and supporting the intellectual, religious, and political leaders of the Jewish people and the Jewish state.
Observation ·
The Most Tragic Jewish Writer of Modern Times
By Hillel HalkinWhy did the great Micha Yosef Berdichevsky, who called on Jews to take personal responsibility for Zionism, never settle in or even visit Palestine?
Response ·
Why Ahad Ha’am Still Matters
By Hillel HalkinCommitted to developing and supporting the intellectual, religious, and political leaders of the Jewish people and the Jewish state.
Monthly Essay ·
What Ahad Ha’am Saw and Herzl Missed—and Vice Versa
By Hillel HalkinThe unresolved rivalry between the great Zionist thinker and the great Zionist strategist still shapes the contending outlooks of many 21st-century Jews.
Response ·
Like No Other People, Jews Remain Rooted in Their Past
By Hillel HalkinCommitted to developing and supporting the intellectual, religious, and political leaders of the Jewish people and the Jewish state.
Monthly Essay ·
Where Is the Jews’ Homeland?
By Hillel HalkinElsewhere than Zion, said the greatest Hebrew poet of the 19th century—until he changed his mind, paving the way for others.
Observation ·
An Unparalleled Document of Jewish Mourning
By Hillel HalkinThe death of his brother in 1041 moved Shmuel Hanagid, one of Jewish history's most extraordinary figures, to write nineteen piercing poems charting the rise and fall of his grief.
Observation ·
The Novelist of Jewish Unity
By Hillel HalkinDid Jews recognizably still exist as a people in the late 19th century? Many questioned it. In his packed and vibrant fiction, the great Peretz Smolenskin proved them wrong.
Observation ·
Nothing Like It in 3,000 Years of Jewish Literature
By Hillel HalkinThe second Hebrew novelist was the first to imagine the pageantry and passion of life in ancient Israel—and thereby excited the dreams of emergent Zionists.
Observation ·
Sex, Magic, Bigotry, Corruption—and the First Hebrew Novel
By Hillel HalkinIn 1819, Joseph Perl published Hebrew literature's first novel . A riotous satire of the ḥasidic movement, it remains largely and unjustly forgotten.
